


Fern Frost

by vanitaslaughing



Series: Mark of the Dreamer [3]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Eye Trauma, Gen, World of Ruin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-14
Updated: 2017-05-14
Packaged: 2018-10-31 16:53:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10903530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanitaslaughing/pseuds/vanitaslaughing
Summary: Before he could open his eyes again and ask about the hold-up, he heard the Lucian turn around.“Is that what you wanted? Well, there you have it! Now let me go back where I came from!”“Ah, good job.” That gravelly voice seemed to ooze hatred for some reason Loqi failed to understand. He held himself still.Argentum had deliberately missed him.





	Fern Frost

**Author's Note:**

> did you know i still cant exactly wrap my head around non-fsk ratings, even though theyre generally the same, just without numbers?
> 
> EDIT: god, i forgot to say; this is best read after chapters 20/21 of amaranthus

_If nothing else, he failed to even pretend he was surprised. So many things had not added up lately, from indifference from the supposed enemy to downright confusing strategic blunders. But that one face, so similar to all the others, struck him._

_It was almost the perfect twin of 6O3. This Lucian looked almost like the remnants of a human underneath the shell that kept it alive. That Lucian looked like a MT._

_Looked like them – looked like him._

_Thus, when he saw the barcode on the Lucian’s wrist, all he could do was snort._

“… _Figured.” He put the girl’s glove back on gently, even though he knew that it was pointless and that she would have to be put down before turning into a monster sooner rather than later. “Well, I have bad news, and worse news, Argentum.”_

* * *

“Huh.”

That was all Caligo Ulldor let out. That man was supposed to be his teacher in many strategic things, but all Loqi Tummelt did was tremble as he looked into the empty, glazed over eyes of an MT without its mask on. Granted, it was dead, but he had believed that these things had just been… machines. The empire certainly had the technology for that, and the funds. The war effort had devoured so much money it was a miracle that it hadn’t gone completely broke, but such was most likely related to having a monopoly on many things.

He’d spent his entire life training to take down the man his mother had painted as the murderer of his father, had thrown himself into training as if he was trying to kill himself or kill his supposed opponent first. At the very least, as questionable as his temper was most of the time, Ulldor kept Loqi grounded.

But this…?

Instead of saying anything, he stormed off. Trembled in his room in peace until rational thinking kicked in.

He’d let himself be carried by rage in the past – it was the reason his entire body ached and hurt, and the reason for the burns underneath the bandages. He’d thrown himself into combat once the targets were confirmed as Cor Leonis and… probably the crown prince. Loqi had stopped listening once Leonis had been confirmed. But once more the Marshal met him with indifference; his supposedly rightful fury not even remotely swayed the man as they fought. Not even hand-to-hand, like an honourable man would have done. But Loqi was not a man of honour, and he considered Cor Leonis even less of one.

Now all he could do was sit in his barracks, legs hugged to himself. He hadn’t even been included in the roll for Altissia, much like Commodore Highwind.

And that was where rational thinking clicked off.

After scathingly commenting on her form in the past and invoking her rightful ire, he sought his father’s last student’s presence for once. She looked less than pleased, but he had expected nothing else. At least once she saw him he raised an eyebrow – he must have looked pathetic.

“If there… is there anything you know about the MT project, Commodore?”

Silence amongst the mercenaries. Of course they wouldn’t have known. Nobody but the highest ups knew, and as esteemed as the Commodore herself was, she was a sell-sword at the end of the day. Someone who could be bought – literally. They wouldn’t forward information to her, never.

“Not much, I’m afraid. Why?”

“Oh, I… was just curious, I suppose…?”

“Careful with that – something’s wrong with the empire, and something as simple as that might get you killed. Much as I don’t like you, you’re just 20. Wouldn’t want you throwing your life away for something childish like poking your nose somewhere it doesn’t belong.”

He huffed.

* * *

Abandoning post was not something he would have seen himself doing, ever. Yet here he was, marching the snowy plains with barely anything more than rations that would last him about two months if he kept them strict and didn’t share with anyone. His birth home had been empty safe for a single Daemon toppling over shelves and breaking plates – his mother, the furious harpy, had vanished like so many other people. Commodore Highwind was packing her things and he swore he heard her talk to High Commander Fleuret the night he himself packed his things. Stowing away on an airship to the plains, falling off but somehow managing to land in a snowdrift… He’d fled his imperial post.

And that was when they found him. Four of them, with the same blonde hair, and the similar faces. Behind them – MTs. Who also bore similar faces underneath the masks, who also had blonde hair.

When had he started thinking of MTs as people, anyway?

“Wait, hold on, Rositha. I know that one – that’s Officer Tummelt.”

Rather quickly he learned that an entire outpost was dedicated to keep all of them in one place. Nearly a hundred of them, all with similar faces, similar blonde hair. Almost all in the same age bracket, almost all of them the same height. It was eerie.

And once he looked into it and saw, he started to understand. They had another thing in common – a tattoo on the wrist, which he had never given too much thought. But in his first week in Zegnautus he had gotten himself into trouble by getting somewhere he wasn’t supposed to. And then a week in, while looking over the MTs since he was the only one who knew how to work with them, he checked it.

Barcode tattoo. On the wrist.

He almost started laughing.

* * *

If nothing else, he’d expected a clean death. Not one sprawled in the snow helplessly with an injured leg and static filling his head, staring up the barrel of Prompto Argentum’s gun. But here Loqi was, and that was how it ended. If only the Lucian didn’t look so terrified, if only his gun didn’t shake like that.

Chancellor Izunia had always been a contestant for his least favourite person, but this solidly made him take the throne. Even Cor Leonis sounded less like a threat now compared to the Chancellor. But, he mused as he took a deep breath and closed his eyes to await the final gunshot he would hear in his life, that wouldn’t matter. It was over. He’d played a game and lost it because there was no way to outplay the empire. Not like this.

He heard the gunshot – but the static didn’t stop. Nothing faded. Had Argentum missed putting a bullet through his brain and had instead shot something vital that would lead to an agonising death? Before he could open his eyes again and ask about the hold-up, he heard the Lucian turn around.

“Is that what you wanted? Well, there you have it! Now let me go back where I came from!”

“Ah, good job.” That gravelly voice seemed to ooze hatred for some reason Loqi failed to understand. He held himself still. Argentum had deliberately missed him. “But I’m afraid you’ll have to come with me, my friend – your liege will come to you if you just let it happen.”

Loqi remained still. Eerily still. He could have lost his limbs or his life, but he only started moving once the sun had set. There was still an inhabited base nearby. If he could just run despite his aching body, if he could just… reach it…

* * *

The absence of the sun only made the cold… colder. Gralea was nearly completely empty and it had been for a year – the people who had access to a pilot fled the city in search of safety. There were still sanctuaries around that worked. There was still safety somewhere, just not in Gralea.

There was no sense of belonging left. They were like caged animals trying to escape, and any person that stood in the way was trampled down. The fact that he had managed to get into Zegnautus, narrowly dodge death and even meet a trio of pilots that helped him clean the wounds and made sure he didn’t bleed to death was a miracle. The other miracle was the fact that their airships worked and the three of them considered looking for people to get out of this desolate place that seemed to have come straight from the Infernian himself.

“If one of you could… follow my directions to an outpost, I would be most grateful.”

That was when they recognised him.

“Officer Tummelt! Goodness gracious, we had assumed you fled with Caligo Ulldor way before this began!”

“… No, I...” Snow. A gunshot. The biting cold as he almost started hysterically laughing once the Chancellor and the Lucian gone. “No, I was in Niflheim the entire time. But it is about time I did my job as part of the army, and that is to protect those weaker than I. The general public or what is left of it cannot survive in the dark.”

Three men and a woman, three pilots and a trained soldier. They agreed to round up whoever they could, whoever was willing to leave the city with them in search of something. Loqi asked one of them to come with him to the base he and Prompto had left about a year ago. Back then the rations had been dwindling. Loqi was expecting nothing but a base full of dead people and Daemons.

The light had failed them just as he had figured. But, there were some of them left. Battered, tired – but about thirty of them lived, having strictly rationed what was left and having a strict rule about who slept when and that no one ever was on watch duty on their own.

He expected fury when he stood in front of them, with the pilot and the airship behind him. Some looked at him carefully, but none were outright hostile. They seemed more surprised to see he was still alive. One stepped forward slowly.

“What happened to Rositha and Argentum?”

“… The Scourge and the Chancellor, respectively. But I still hold onto the hope that Argentum survived that guy.”

The pilot knew what they were. The pilot didn’t care, surprisingly enough. They had all learned what they were once supposed to be, and more than one wondered what the actual human being in the airship thought about this. Eventually one asked.

“You guys act as if you’re not human yourselves. I don’t see any machinery on any of you, none of you started sizzling back when the sun was still around and I reckon none of you will once we get the sun back. So, all I’m doing is what Officer Tummelt and I set out to do – helping Niff citizens.”

All of them fell silent on the airship. Ever since they had learned of it, they had stopped thinking of themselves as anything but failed projects, Loqi himself included. Even though the outside remained as dark and smothering as always, it felt like something in the air changed.

* * *

“Three airships, about a hundred people. What do we do now?”

“… Tenebrae might be our best guess.”

“With the Oracle dead? We might as well just be flying to our deaths, Officer.”

“Well, what do you suggest? We’re Niffs. Hell, one third of us were supposed to be MTs. We can’t exactly leave for _Lucis,_ now can we? Emperor Aldercapt and Chancellor Izunia all but butchered King Regis and his _entire ruling council_ in a single night, and Crown Prince Noctis paid us back in likewise. And that’s before the Tidemother and Altissia – I’d be surprised if they hadn’t stolen some anti-aircraft weaponry from Gralea or start pelting us with their spells as soon as they see us.”

“It’s said Lucis still has light, though… Perhaps they’ll take in the innocent citizens that have nothing to do with the war…?”

“They were accomplices by not openly opposing the war. Lucians, and I think the Tenebraens and Accordans they harbour in whatever place they have safely secured, would be absolutely right to behead every single one of us, or feed us to the Daemons prowling their lands. Non-military citizens or not.”

“But we can’t stay here either!”

“… Yeah. How far can we go in a single session before having to land to refuel?”

“I’d say about Cartanica, then we need about an hour and can fly all the way to Insomnia if necessary.”

“Good. Can I trust you guys to pack up in case something goes awry and fly somewhere safe?”

“… Wait, what are you saying Officer Tummelt?”

“I’m saying we’ll try Lucis, despite the odds stacked against us. I’ll go on my own to ask them – if nothing else, I can page you to fly away before the Lucians roll in, and that way only a war criminal from the opposing side gets caught instead of citizens.”

“...”

“It’s our only chance.”

* * *

His memory cut out in Cartanica, about at the time when he drew his weapon on a Daemon that had approached the group. The place itself had been surprisingly desolate, other than the destroyed trains. When next he woke, he was lying on the floor in an airship, with a woman smiling at him.

“Good to have you back with us, Officer Tummelt.”

She was one of the citizens, a woman who had lost her entire family in the war and then in the desolation that had followed in Gralea. She had tried to get information out of him regarding her daughter, but all he had to offer had been a weak shrug. She might have been alive for all he knew, but the same told him nothing.

The woman had reluctantly packed her things and followed the group. It was a good thing, seeing as she was a nurse. Being on the floor with the nurse hovering over him…

“No, no, don’t sit up quite yet.” His vision was strangely limited. “It’s a miracle that thing didn’t pierce your skull entirely, but you’ll have to take it slow for a while; the only thing that wasn’t salvageable was your eye.”

“We… out of Cartanica?”

“According to the pilot it will be another three hours before we hit Lucian land, and after that we… don’t know where to go.”

He turned his head a little. They hadn’t considered it yet, they had absolutely no idea where the rest of the world would huddle up. Which place would still have light in this darkness? Not Insomnia, it couldn’t be Insomnia. Something told him that the Crown City was the least likely.

He went over the maps he’d pored over with Caligo in the past. Lucis was mostly untouched, filled with ruins of Solheim. Most settlements were small, Lucians depended on sanctuaries and havens while travelling; their country was full of them. Even some of the old temples from Solheim might still have enough leftover power to be considered a haven these days, but he’d never gotten to test that.

“Not Galahd.”

The people around him nodded in agreement. The hatch to the bridge was open and he could hear the pilot murmuring an “Of course” to herself.

“Not Insomnia. Lucis… doesn’t have big cities… best bet… best bet...”

He heard the voices of the commanders again. How it was imperative to keep Leiden and Duscae apart with walls and checkpoints. How in Cleigne was a city the elusive Crown Prince might have been en route to, now that they had severed sea travel to Accordo.

“… Lestallum.”

Silence. Then the pilot let out a curse.

“Of course! Why didn’t we think of that before?”

He didn’t say anything. His already limited vision was swimming and the world was spinning on top of that. The last thing he heard before falling back unconscious was the pilot telling the other two to make course for Lestallum via intercom.


End file.
